Garthowen. Allen Raine

      CHAPTER III

      MORVA OF THE MOOR

      When Will had reached the door of the farm kitchen in a fume of hot temper, the cool sea breeze coming up the valley had bathed his flushed face with so soothing an influence that he had turned towards it and wandered away to the cliffs which made the seaward boundary of the farm. A craggy hill on the opposite side of the valley cast its lengthening shadow on his path until he reached the Cribserth, a ridge of rocks which ran down the mountain side on the Garthowen land. It rose abruptly from the mountain pasturage, as though some monster of the early world were struggling to rise once more from its burial of ages, succeeding only in erecting its rugged spine and crest through the green sward. This ridge marked a curious division of the country, for on one side of it lay all the signs of cultivation of which this wind-swept parish could boast. Here were villages, fertile fields, and wooded valleys; but beyond the rugged escarpment all was different. For miles the seaward side of the hills was wild and bare, except for the soft velvet turf, interspersed with gorse and heather, which stretched up the steep slopes, covering and softening every rough outline. Even Will, as he rounded the ridge, recovered his equanimity, and his face lighted up with pleasure at the sight which met his view. Down below glistened a sea of burnished gold, with tints and shades of purple grey; above stretched a sky of still more glowing colours; and landward, rising to the blue of the zenith, the rugged moorland was covered with a mantle of heath and gorse, which shone in the evening sun in a rich mingling of gold and purple.

      "What a glorious evening!" were Will's first thoughts. The birds sang around him, the sea lisped its soft whispers on the sea below, the song of a fisherman out on the bay came up on the breeze, the rabbits scudded across his path, and the seagulls floated slowly above him. All the sullenness went out of his face, giving way to a look of pleased surprise, as out of the carpet of gorgeous colouring spread before him rose suddenly the vision of a girl. It was Morva who came towards him, her hair glistening in the sunshine, her blue eyes dancing with the light of health and happiness. Behind a rising knoll stood her foster-mother's cottage, almost hidden by the surrounding gorse and heather, for, according to the old Welsh custom, it had been built in a hollow scooped out behind a natural elevation, which protected it from the strong sea wind; in fact, there was little of it visible except its red chimney-pot, from which generally curled the blue smoke of the furze and dried ferns burning on the bare earthen floor below.

      Turning round the pathway to the front of the house, one came upon its whitewashed walls, the low worm-eaten door deep set in its crooked lintels, and its two tiny windows, looking out on the sunny garden, every inch of which was neatly and carefully cultivated by Morva's own hands; for she would not allow her "little mother" to tire herself with hard work in house or garden. To her foster-child it was a labour of love. In the early morning hours before milking time at the farm, or in the grey of the twilight, Morva was free to work in her own garden, while Sara only tended her herb bed. There at the further end was the potato bed in purple flower, here were rows of broad beans, in which the bees were humming, attracted by their sweet aroma that filled the evening air; there was the leek bed waving its grey green blades, and here, in the sunniest corner of all, was Sara's herb bed, which she tended with special care, whose products were gathered at stated times of the moon's age, not without serious thought and many consultations of an old herbal, brown with age, which always rested with her Bible and Williams "Pantycelyn's" hymns above the lintel of the door. For nearly seventeen years this had been Morva's home, ever since the memorable night of wind and storm which had wrecked the good ship Penelope on her voyage home from Australia. She had reached Milford safely a week before, after a prosperous voyage, and having landed some of her passengers, was making her further way towards Liverpool, her final destination. It was late autumn, and suddenly a storm arose which drove her out of her course, until on the Cardiganshire coast she had become a total wreck. In the darkness and storm, where the foaming waves leapt up to the black sky, the wild wind had battered her, and the cruel waves had torn her asunder, and engulphed her in their relentless depths; and when all was over, a few bubbles on the face of the water, a few planks tossed about by the waves, were all the signs left of the Penelope. The cottagers on the rugged coast never forgot that stormy night, when the roofs were uplifted from the houses, when gates were wrenched from their hinges, when the shrieking wind had torn the frightened sheep from their fold, and carried them over hedges and hillocks. There had never been such a storm in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, and when in the foam and the spray, Stiven "Storrom" had raked out from the debris washed on to the shore a hencoop, on which was bound a tiny baby, sodden and cold, but still alive, every one of the small crowd gathered on the beach below Garthowen slopes, considered he had added a fresh claim to his name—a name which he had gained by his frequent raids upon the fierce storms, and the harvest which he had gathered from their fury. That baby had found open arms and tender hearts ready to succour it, and when Sara "'spridion" had stretched imploring hands towards it, reminding the onlookers of her recent bereavement, it was handed over to her fostering care. "Give it to me," she said, "my heart is empty; it will not fill up the void, but it will help me to bear it. There are other reasons," she added, "good reasons." She had carried it home triumphantly, and little Morva had never after missed a mother's love and tenderness. The seventeen years that followed had glided happily over her head; in fact she was so perfect an embodiment of health and happiness, that she sometimes excited the envy of the somewhat sombre dwellers on those lonely hillsides; and when in the golden sunset, she suddenly rose from the gorse bloom to greet Will's sight, she had never appeared brighter or more brimful of joy.

      "Well, indeed," said Will, casting a furtive glance behind him, to make sure that no one from Garthowen was following in his footsteps, "Morva, lass, where hast come from? I will begin to think thou art one of the spirits thy mother says she sees. I thought thee wast busy in the dairy at home!"

      Morva laughed merrily.

      "I had some milk to bring home, and Ann sent me early to help mother a bit. I was going now to gather dry furze and bracken to boil the porridge. Will you come and have supper with us, Will?"

      "I have just had my tea," he said, "and a supper of bitter herbs into the bargain, for my father angered me by something he said. He is changeable as the wind, and I was roaming over here to seek for calmness from the sea wind, and perhaps a talk with Sara."

      "Yes, come! She is in the herb garden gathering her bear's claws and rue; 'tis the proper time for them. But first we must cut the bracken."

      Will took her sickle and soon cut a pile of the dry brittle fuel, binding it with a rope which she carried; and turning towards the cottage, they dragged it behind them.

      "You go and seek mother," said Morva, "while I go and boil the porridge."

      And in the garden Will found Sara stooping over her herb bed, and deeply intent upon her task.

      The sun was setting now, and threw its ruddy beams upon the sunny corner, and upon the aged face and figure of the old woman.

      "Well, 'machgen i," she said, straightening herself. "What is it?"

      "Oh, nothing," said Will; "only, roaming about the moor, I came in to see you, and Morva has asked me to have supper with you—you are gathering your herbs?"

      "Yes, 'tis time to dry them and hang them up under the rafters; if they will save one human being from pain 'twill be a good thing. Last night Mari Lewis came to ask me for something for her boy; I gave it to her, but she never came to tell me whether it had done him any good," and she smiled as she led the way back to the cottage carrying her bunches of herbs.

      "Was it Dan?" asked Will.

      "Yes."

      "Then he is well, for I saw him ploughing this evening."

      "That's